Is it possible to select text on a Windows form label?

C#.Netasp.netWinformsLabel

C# Problem Overview


Is it possible to highlight/select part of text in a Windows Form label control? I know its possible with RTFtextbox control but that using that control would be overkill as I need to create many instances of the label.

C# Solutions


Solution 1 - C#

Is it possible to select text on a Windows form label? - NO (At least no easy way without overriding Label.Paint method)

You can easily change a TextBox for this purpose.

TextBox1.Text = "Hello, Select Me";
TextBox1.ReadOnly = true;
TextBox1.BorderStyle = 0;
TextBox1.BackColor = this.BackColor;
TextBox1.TabStop = false;
TextBox1.Multiline = True; // If needed

Don't believe? here is an example for you.

enter image description here

Option 2 (If you just want to enable copy label text)

Double clicking on the label copies the text to clipboard. This is the default winforms Label functionality. You can add a toolTip control to improve the usability if you like.

enter image description here

Solution 2 - C#

Double clicking on a label will copy the text to the clipboard. This is now the default behavior of Windows Forms labels.

Solution 3 - C#

Like Bala R answered:

> "Use a TextBox with BorderStyle set to None and Readonly set to true > and Backcolor to match that of the container.".

If the Text string is very long, and the Width of the TextBox is not enough to display all text, then you can set the Width property of the TextBox to display all it's Text.

If you need to know the correct number for Width, then you can use the MeasureString method of Graphics for this. You can get the instance from CreateGraphics() method of the Control (TextBox in this case).

First parameter is TextBox's Text, and second parameter is TextBox's Font. This function returns SizeF struct. You need only the Width property of it, convert it to integer with (int)size.Width or (int)Math.Round(size.Width).

Don't forget to call the Dispose() method of the graphics instance after, because you won't need it anymore.


You can write your own function that will do all this process:

static void SetText(TextBox textBox, string str)
{
   Graphics graphics = textBox.CreateGraphics();
   SizeF size = graphics.MeasureString(str, textBox.Font);
   graphics.Dispose();
   textBox.Width = (int)Math.Round(size.Width);
   textBox.Text = str;
}

Solution 4 - C#

Use a TextBox with BorderStyle set to None and Readonly set to true and Backcolor to match that of the container.

Solution 5 - C#

No, it's not possible to select text on the Windows Form Label. You can instead use a read only textbox for this.

Solution 6 - C#

You will not be able to highlight part of the text on a label. However, you can use an image and set it to the Label.Image property if the text for these labels is static.

Solution 7 - C#

I know this question is about selecting parts of the text of a label but I assume the text shall ultimately be placed on the clipboard.

So if you don't mind copying the whole text, just set a Click event on the label to copy its text to the clipboard:

myLabel.Click += new System.EventHandler(MyLabel_Click);

// ...

private void MyLabel_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
   Clipboard.SetText(myLabel.Text);
}

Attributions

All content for this solution is sourced from the original question on Stackoverflow.

The content on this page is licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

Content TypeOriginal AuthorOriginal Content on Stackoverflow
Questiontunafish24View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - C#CharithJView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - C#vmilView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - C#user2133061View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - C#Bala RView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - C#AmryView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - C#gjohnView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - C#Markus LView Answer on Stackoverflow